The essays in this collection illustrate the interdisciplinary approach to the history of ideas fostered by the Journal of the History of Ideas. Science, philosophy and religion were closely connected in the 17th and 18th centuries, and common threads run through all the articles.
A number of essays revolve around Locke: the implications of his doctrines for religion, and their relation to and support of the new science; several of these articles refer to Descartes, Leibniz andHume. There are essays on optics and vision in the work of Berkeley, Reid and Newton, and on the relation between biology and physiology, especially as these disciplines contribute to the science of man.
The authors include HENRY GUERLAC, MARGARET C. JACOB, SHIRLEY ROE, L. LAUDAN, NICHOLAS JOLLEY, JAMES FORCE, G. A. J. ROGERS and CATHERINE WILSON.